45-70 boolits

Have a Remington RB 45-70. the barrel is 34" long, (Green Mountain) 18" twist. "What is the best size boolits to use for 100 to 200 yards."? Just putting holes in paper. Was told to use the large 535 for a 18" twist, at 150 yards or so, the boolits look as if they are not stabilizing out. Tried lower loads and high loads, nothing, the same........They are looking good at 300 to 400 yards but our range is only 200 yards. As said it's not for hunting, just holes. (Powder loads.....BP with FFg 70 gr and Smokeness, H-4198 at 31 gr all with 500 to 535 boolits) Thanks for your time beng

200 yards is a short distance for the .45-70, and a 400+ grain greaser on top of real bp and a wad or wad stack should be a good starting point. the heavier and longer bullets are pretty much mandatory for medium to real long distance accuracy. for my grandkids, i use a 340 grain greaser under 14 grains of trail boss for a fun 100-200 yard load that has little recoil and decent accuracy. fwiw, i use a 404 grain PPB slick under a multi wad stack that's under 60 to 66 grains of bp for 200 yards. that load won some 200 yard matches for me.

A good 400-450 grn bullet should perform well out to 200 yds. Over a slightly compressed charge of black powder velocity should be in the 1150-1250 fps range and be very accurate. If buying ready made bullets they may be on the hard side and not sealing the bore well. A 535 grn bullet cast from 1-20 should be very accurate in a 1-18 twist with the load the rifle likes. I shoot up to 550 grn in mt 1-18 green mountain, pedersoli, Al Story BRC and badger barrels. A good place to start is the lyman 457125n 510 grn govt round nose and its lighter twin the 410 grn round nose. The postell works well but may be a little fussier as to loading. The 45-70 usually thrives on the heavier bullets.

I use the Lyman 535 postel in a roller with a 34 inch badger barrel with the 1 in 18 twist.
But mines loaded strictly with Goex ffg, 60 grns or so.
I have great accuracy with it at any distance, but have been shooting it for a long time.

For less than 200 yards, save some lead and use either a 385 or 405 grn boolit.
Me I'd use bp to push it.

If your barrel and chamber will shoot them 405 grain bullets would be good to 4-500 yards, but 18 twist doesn’t always do well with the lighter bullets. The Saeco 645 bullet comes in at around 480 grains cast from 20-1 and shots well from 100 to 1000 yards.

Here is another vote for the Saeco 645.

Thanks, I will try the 450 with 70 gr BP and work from there. If the 535 at 200 is not to good, why will the 645 work?

The 645 is the mold number not the weight, not sure if that's a mix up on poster's part.

645 is the mould number 480 is the weight of the bullet


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I found the Lee 459-500-3R was a pretty good boolit in my Pedersoli Sharps unless I had a crosswind. Crosswind seemed to make it unstable after 200 meters. Went to the Lyman 457132 and my scores improved dramatically.